| Abstract |
Over the past two decades, the women’s
shelter movement and researchers in various disciplines have been the leading producers of
knowledge about and initiators of responses to physical, sexual, and psychological
violence against women - primarily within intimate relationships. It was first later that
various public authorities eventually acknowledged and accepted their responsibility for
facilitating the transformation of this "individual", family, or subcultural
problem into a full-fledged social problem. To advertise and reinforce the multi-agency
public sector response to violence against women developed in Stockholm County 1992-1995,
several agencies joined together in Operation Kvinnofrid (roughly, Pax Women), in which
the most visible component was a two-week poster campaign in October 1997. Most resources
over a one-year period were devoted to the poster campaign, despite the disclaimer that
this was only the most visible and in some ways the least important component of Operation
Kvinnofrid. Among the most important elements of the Operation were intra-agency training
and improved awareness, knowledge, and routines as well as inter-agency cooperation. One
function of the poster campaign was to alert the public to such efforts within the police,
the health and social services, and the local governmental bodies. Nevertheless, the
posters themselves focused on the reprehensibility of this violence.
The official evaluation of the campaign declared the poster campaign the least
successful aspect while overall praising Operation Kvinnofrid. This paper will examine the
following contradictions: (1) the necessary of high-visibility tactics to "sell"
long-term, fundamental changes; (2) the political contingencies that lead to raised
expectations among "grassroots" workers in the various sectors where
middle-management may be quite ill-equipped to assign violence against women such high
priority; and (3) the presentation of private violence as "everyone’s"
concern even though true insight into the issue seems reserved for those with long and
diligent experience. |
